Obama dramatically expanded the political playing field in 2008, competing and winning in states that had not backed a Democrat for president in a generation, but next year's map could look more like President George W. Bush's tight 2004 re-election win over Democrat John Kerry.
The SPUTTERING ECONOMY AND UNHAPPINESS WITH OBAMA'S LEADERSHIP have battered his popularity nationwide, hitting him particularly hard IN CONSERVATIVE STATES LIKE NORTH CAROLINA, INDIANA AND VIRGINIA where in 2008 he broke Democratic losing streaks dating to the 1960s.
HIGH UNEMPLOYMENT AND A DECLINING MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY ALSO HAVE HELPED DRIVE DOWN HIS POLL NUMBERS IN TRADITIONAL RUST BELT BATTLEGROUNDS LIKE OHIO, PENNSYLVANIA AND WISCONSIN, which are crucial to his hopes of putting together the 270 electoral votes needed for re-election.
Obama won 365 electoral votes, awarded on a state-by-state basis, in a smashing 2008 victory that gave him 95 electoral votes to spare. This time around, his margin for error will be smaller, Quinnipiac University pollster Peter Brown said.
"He has a cushion, but it's going to be a lot closer than in 2008," Brown said. "IT IS HARD TO SEE, GIVEN THE CURRENT SITUATION, OBAMA WINNING STATES IN 2012 THAT HE DID NOT WIN IN 2008. The question is, how many more states does he lose?"….
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/20/us-usa-campaign-battlegrounds-idUSTRE74J63E20110520
Watch Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Florida. If he loses them, he loses the election.
The top 10 reasons to support a Cain run for president
Even those conservatives who will not vote for Herman Cain to win the Republican nomination should hope that he does run -- and that his candidacy lasts a long time during the nomination process, perhaps even succeeding.
HERMAN CAIN IS PEERLESS AMONG THE LONG LIST OF POTENTIAL CANDIDATES -- AND HIS IMPACT ON THE FIELD AND THE DIRECTION OF THE PARTY WILL BE IN THE DIRECTION OF FREE ENTERPRISE, LESS GOVERNMENT, AND SPEAKING WITH BOLDNESS -- you know, pretty much the opposite of what the GOP has done since Newt's Congress lost steam in the mid- to late '90s.
To codify, here are the top reasons to support Cain based on my observation of the man over a period of years:….
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/01/top_ten_reasons_to_support_her.html
Not only that, but he would drive the left crazy since their first argument is the right is racist.
Saturday Night Card Game (Progressives Devouring Their Own Tail)
This is the latest in a series on the use of the race card for political gain:
I previously wrote about accusations by Princeton Professor Cornel West that Obama was racist. Against blacks.
NOW WEST LAYS INTO OBAMA AGAIN. IT SPEAKS FOR ITSELF, AND IS CAUSING ALL SORTS OF LIBERAL ANGST…
Watch video here
http://legalinsurrection.blogspot.com/2011/05/saturday-night-card-game-progressives.html
Kind of fun to watch.
Public Sector Unions
Many questions have arisen from recent political events about the power of unions. In a new working paper published today, Mercatus scholar Eileen Norcross, compiled research on unions and clears up some misconceptions about THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PRIVATE AND PUBLIC SECTOR UNIONS AND HOW THEY WORK.
“THE MAIN DIFFERENCES BETWEEN PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SECTOR COME FROM ECONOMICS,” SAID NORCROSS. “PRIVATE SECTOR UNIONS CAN RAISE THEIR WAGES, BUT NOT THEIR EMPLOYMENT. BY CONTRAST, PUBLIC SECTOR UNIONS CAN INCREASE BOTH WAGE AND EMPLOYMENT OUTCOMES.”
The result, says Norcross, is that public sector unions can grow the size of budgets, while private sector unions are constrained by the profitability of the firm.
“Unlike private sector unions, PUBLIC SECTOR UNIONS RELY NOT ONLY ON COLLECTIVE BARGAINING, BUT ALSO LEVERAGE THEIR POLITICAL INFLUENCE TO ACHIEVE THESE GAINS,” said Norcross. “In fact, EMPIRICAL STUDIES INDICATE THE POLITICAL ACTIVITY OF UNIONS MAY BE MORE EFFECTIVE THAN COLLECTIVE BARGAINING AT RAISING EMPLOYMENT.”
http://mercatus.org/features/how-do-unions-affect-state-budgets
Something that is intuitive being backed up by actual studies. It seems public sector unions political activity is even better than collective bargaining.
Barney Frank blasted for debt ceiling panic
The Bay State GOP is blasting U.S. Rep. Barney Frank for claiming that the nation might default on its bills for the first time in history because congressional Republicans are refusing to raise the government’s $14.3 trillion debt ceiling.
“THIS IS BARNEY FRANK’S M.O. — BURN THE HOUSE DOWN, THEN TAKE HIS HAND OFF OF THE GAS CAN AND SAY, ‘IT’S (THE GOP’S) FAULT,’ ” Massachusetts Republican Party executive director Nathan Little said.
Local Tea Partiers insist that IT’S DEMOCRATS WHO WANT A FINANCIAL MELTDOWN SO PANICKED LAWMAKERS WILL RAISE THE BORROWING CAP WITHOUT ADDRESSING GOVERNMENT SPENDING….
http://bostonherald.com/news/us_politics/view.bg?articleid=1339431
Expect a lot more of this in the coming months.
Study shows Democrat Profs more egalitarian than Republican Profs
…The distribution of academic talent was the same across “Republican” and “Democratic” classrooms, judging from SAT scores. But the REPUBLICANS GAVE GRADES OF C-MINUS OR WORSE 6.2% OF THE TIME, COMPARED WITH 4% FOR DEMOCRATS. AND REPUBLICANS AWARDED THE GOLD STAR OF A-PLUS 8% OF THE TIME, COMPARED WITH ONLY 3.5% FOR DEMOCRATS.
On average, REPUBLICAN PROFESSORS GAVE BLACK STUDENTS GRADES THAT WERE .2 OF A GRADE POINT LOWER THAN THEIR DEMOCRATIC COLLEAGUES, or about two-thirds of the distance between a B and a B-minus.
On other demographic fronts, older professors were slightly more likely than their younger peers to give A-pluses. Women gave A-pluses to female students slightly more often than men did, and women were also more egalitarian at the bottom end of the grading curve….
http://blogs.wsj.com/ideas-market/2011/05/18/republican-and-democratic-professors-grade-differently/?mod=google_news_blog
You can't draw any conclusions from the information here, but it is interesting.
Dark Energy Is Driving Universe Apart
A five-year survey of 200,000 galaxies, stretching back seven billion years in cosmic time, has led to one of the BEST INDEPENDENT CONFIRMATIONS THAT DARK ENERGY IS DRIVING OUR UNIVERSE APART AT ACCELERATING SPEEDS
The survey used data from NASA's space-based Galaxy Evolution Explorer and the Anglo-Australian Telescope on Siding Spring Mountain in Australia.
The findings offer new support for the favored theory of HOW DARK ENERGY WORKS -- AS A CONSTANT FORCE, UNIFORMLY AFFECTING THE UNIVERSE AND PROPELLING ITS RUNAWAY EXPANSION. They contradict an alternate theory, where gravity, not dark energy, is the force pushing space apart. According to this alternate theory, with which the new survey results are not consistent, Albert Einstein's concept of gravity is wrong, and gravity becomes repulsive instead of attractive when acting at great distances….
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110519113152.htm
In case this keeps you awake at nights.
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